![]() Because the second half of the argument goes that instead of being jealous, we all should be working in harmony together to create jobs and opportunity. There it is - the sound of the other shoe dropping. "The better politics are the politics of inclusion where everyone shares in economic growth." ![]() "The politics of envy are the wrong politics in America," Wall Street shill and former Treasury Secretary Larry Summers proclaimed to Politico. Hey, it can't be helped if people are resentful - your success is your own and why should there be apologies for making something of yourself? Thus, victimhood becomes the whine du jour of the superrich - it goes well with everything. What's handy about making accusations of envy or jealously is that it doesn't have to reflect badly on you, the accuser. It's notable that even this small, ultimately ineffectual moment did not rise from any generalized spate of envy but specific resentment against the use of tax dollars to reward failure. But the Obama administration opposed the bill, the Senate forgot about it, and the moment passed. The House of Representatives (by a vote of 328 to 93) passed a 90-percent tax on those bonuses. Indeed such envy might do just that, but beyond Internet trolls and covetous cranks, where is it? As the headline of Jonathan Chait's recent story in New York magazine notes, vast public envy is an "imaginary epidemic." The closest we have come politically, he writes, "was a brief upsurge in populist anger for a short period of 2009, following news reports of bonuses handed out to employees at bailout recipient AIG. Brooks, president of the conservative American Enterprise Institute wrote in the March 2 edition of The New York Times. "It's safe to conclude that a national shift toward envy would be toxic for American culture," Arthur C. Nor will this envy and jealousy meme disappear any time soon because it, too, seems to have captured the imagination of the plutocracy. But the foul deed is done, the smear is smeared and it won't be the last time this particular straw dog barks. Langone subsequently has apologized - sort of. You don't survive as a society if you encourage and thrive on envy or jealousy." ![]() How else to explain venture capitalist Tom Perkins's infamous comparison of what he called "progressive war" to Kristallnacht? And now we have Home Depot tycoon Ken Langone telling that as far as populist sentiment goes, "I hope it's not working, because if you go back to 1933, with different words, this is what Hitler was saying in Germany. But apparently, whenever the American elite contemplate the possibility of open rebellion against income inequality it's not peasants storming the Bastille at the start of the French Revolution that they see - it's Nazis jackbooting into mansions and searching the premises for yacht owners. "It," of course, is a revolt of the 99 percent, the thought of which seems to have elements of the one percent so freaked out they can barely choke down their Salon Blanc de Blanc. "The French aristocracy never saw it coming either." "Rick Perry: The voice in your head is not God," said what a lot of us were thinking and, "If Mitt had storage, he'd be able to find his tax returns," actually does manage to deftly combine product placement with a point of view.īut their current ad really catches the eye: "NYC: Tolerant of your beliefs, judgmental of your shoes," is a New York state of mind that even those of us who favor sneakers and loafers over Louboutins can get behind. Yet most of the notoriety the firm's ads have achieved has little to do with their product and much to do with pride of place and politics. Some of its advertising addresses this problem directly - "Your closet's tinier than a runway model's lunch," one read a couple of years ago "When he's a keeper but his stuff isn't," was another favorite. ![]() The sacrifice we make for living here is that we have no room for all our stuff this storage facility exists to bridge the gap by renting out the urban equivalent of an attic or cellar where we can stash our junk until our next move, new relationship or death. Here on our whimsical island off the coast of the Eastern Seaboard, we have a company called Manhattan Mini Storage that is as famous for the semi-snarky wit of its billboards and subway posters as it is for the spaces it rents to we New Yorkers who live in apartments so small the mice are stoop-shouldered. ![]()
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